As for one of the means for improving sharpness of a color photographic light-sensitive material, how to make the photographic component layers of the light-sensitive material thinner has been studied variously. Particularly, in a silver halide emulsion layer more closer to a support, a light scattering path from the surface of the light-sensitive material to the emulsion layer becomes longer. It has, therefore, been known as an effective means for improving image-sharpness to make a layer thinner by reducing the binder content of a light-sensitive material. To which, Journal of the Optical Society of America, 58, (9), pp. 1245-1256, 1968; Photographic Science and Engineering, 16, &lt;3&gt;, pp. 181-191, 1972; and so forth may be referred.
As for the typical means for making a layer thinner, there are well-known means such as the means in which the amounts of gelatin, a coupler and/or a high-boiling solvent for dispersing couplers are diminished and, besides, another means in which the so-called polymer couplers or the like are used. However, any of these means is not desirable from the viewpoint of displaying the photographic characteristics, because the preservability of light-sensitive materials is deteriorated.
On the other hand, there are the other difficulties in making layers thinner. According to the studies made by the present inventors, for example, it became apparent that the troubles such as a faulty desilvering is actualized in a bleaching step if a layer thickness is thinned to be not thicker than 17 .mu.m, though the thickness of the emulsion layers of ordinary type color light-sensitive materials is from 20 to 30 .mu.m. There is still no verification of the reason why the faulty desilvering is actualized by making an emulsion layer thinner, however, it may be supposed that the properties of developed silver are delicately varied by increasing the proportion of silver to binders contained in the emulsion layers when making the layers thinner, so that the faulty desilvering may be taken place.
Fundamentally, the methods each for processing silver halide color photographic light-sensitive materials are comprised of the two processes, namely, a color developing process and a desilvering process. The desilvering process is usually comprised of a bleaching step and another step such as a fixing or bleach-fixing step in which a fixing function may be displayed. Besides the above steps, other additional steps such as a rinsing, stabilizing or the like steps may usually be added to the process.
Metal complex salts of organic acids, such as the metal complex salts of aminopolycarboxylic acid and so forth, have so far been used as the oxidizers for bleaching image-forming silver, because they have little pollution troubles and meet the requirements for recovering waste liquids. However, the processing solutions each containing such metal complex salts of organic acids have a defect that image-forming silver, i.e., metallic silver, is bleached at a substantially low rate, i.e., an oxidizing rate, because the oxidizing speed thereof is usually slow. There is a defect that it takes a long time to perform a bleaching step particularly with a high-speed silver halide color photographic light-sensitive material comprising principally a silver bromide or silver iodobromide emulsion, a highly silver-containing color photographic paper, a color photographic negative or reversal film for photograph-taking.
In the methods for continuously processing a number of silver halide photographic light-sensitive materials with an automatic processor or the like, it is required to provide a means for keeping constant the concentration of the components of a processing solution so as to prevent the functions of the bleaching solution from being deteriorated by the variations of the component concentration. For this purporse, there have been some proposals, such as the so-called concentrated low replenishment system in which a replenisher is concentrated and is then replenished in a small amount, another system in which an over-flown solution is added with a regenerating agent so as to serve again as a replenisher, and so forth.
Among the bleaching solutions in particular, there is a method having been put to practical use, in which a ferrous organic acid complex salt produced by bleaching developed silver is oxidized to be a ferric organic acid complex salt and a regenerating agent for compensating a shortage so that it may be used to serve again as a replenisher.
However, at the so-called compact-sized laboratories (which are sometimes called `mini-labs` as a byname) recently having been popularized, there are serious needs for simplifying photofinishing processes and economizing the narrow installation space for a processor. It is, therefore, particularly undesirable to provide a regeration system which requires a troublesome labor and control as well as an extra space for regenerating process.
It is, therefore, preferable to provide the above-mentioned concentrated low-replenishing system, however, this system has the defects that a bleaching reaction is inhibited when an amount of a bleaching solution replenished is too much diminished, because the concentration of the components of a color developer brought into the bleaching solution becomes higher and, more seriously, that a bleach-fog is produced and an image-preservability is deteriorated.
The problems of the above-mentioned bleach-fog and image-preservability deterioration have become more notorious particularly in the case of the recent low-replenishment of a color developer. In other words, these problems have become more serious at the present stage where a further lower replenishment is demanded to materialize a low pollution and to save costs.